Should our website change from Windows hosting to Linux to use Wordpress

[AdamNT]

Hi There

I hope you can help me out. The company I work for is in the process of creating a new website. The design agency we are employing to do this want us to move to a Linux based server rather than the Windows one our current site and email hoster uses. Our current hosts have said that they can upgrade our current package FOC to be able to include all the features that Wordpress and CMS require but our designers would still rather move us as they say Linux is 'smother'.

Our hosts and our design agency can move the website over easily but we would also need to move all our emails over.

Our current hosts have told us:
"Although we have a new webhosting platform which supports these features and wordpress we are only able to upgrade your account. We do not manage migration of data. If you will experience any downtime will depend on how you migrate - we can offer you both hosting packages side by side so you can configure your new hosting and then switch when ready.

Our hosting runs on Windows however fully supports Wordpress."

I have done quite a lot of research over the last 48 hours and looking through various forums across the web everyone says go to Linux, BUT all these posts are atleast 3 years old, so I have no opinions on what the current state of play is between Windows and Linux now.

What we need to know is:

1) How easy is it to copy over our emails from one server to another, and if it has to be done externally is it going to be costly or would a new host happily do it to get our business?
2) Is Linux better than Windows anyway and for the hassel it will take, it will be well worth it in the longrun?

Any advice you can offer will be greatly appriciated and if you require more information, I will try and give it, though I am pretty much at the top of my IT knowledge at this point!

Thank you.
Adam

[harry]

Well, Linux and Windows platform have their unique file system hence it's not recommended to swap the hosting platform to maintain the consistency, moreover you won't be able to migrate the email accounts if you switch from Windows to linux.
You will have to download them on your local machine for reference and will have to create new accounts on the new Linux hosting platform.
For me both hosting platforms are reliable, stable and secure however Linux hosting is preferred for Non-Microsoft applications.

[Ben Stones]

Hi Adam

Linux-based hosting is generally cheaper than Windows-based hosting because there isn't the expense of Windows Server and other proprietary software on the server. If you really do need to migrate over to a Linux-based server, and you wish to sign up with us, our senior technicians can assist you in the migration. There will be no downtime during such migration because your domains will still be pointed to the server that your accounts are hosted on until the migration is confirmed to be completed. I will request one of our senior administrators to be assigned to your migration if you choose hosting with us. Once the migration is complete, all you'll need to do is change the nameservers of all your domains to point to the nameservers that reference to the Linux-based server you will be hosted on. The "nameservers" are what point a particular domain to a server in which the acocunt is set up on.

Once you change the nameservers for your domains, no real downtime will occur, because as long as the account with your current web hosting provider is still active during the migration period, any visitor who accesses your company's website(s) will either be directed to either server depending on whether the nameserver changes have propagated for that visitor, which entirely depends on how long the Internet service provider caches (temporarily stores) nameserver data for, among other factors. Usually, within an hour or two, nameserver propagation should have occurred fully, or at least a large proportion. It's often faster, but sometimes can rarely take up to 48 - 72 hours, but this may not apply to everyone trying to access your website(s).

Just to make sure I'm not confusing you here, "propagation" means the time it takes for nameservers changes to take effect worldwide among all Internet service providers and so forth. Once this propagation has occurred, your domain will then be pointing to our Linux-based server. However, to transfer your e-mails, you do not need to wait until nameserver propagation is complete on your end. You can login to your Linux-based account with us as soon as your account is actually set up. However, in this case, you'll want to wait until our senior administrators have completed the migration. Migration shouldn't take long, and once complete, we'll let you know.

However, if you wish to stay with your current web hosting provider, they can indeed migrate your account over as they stated but again, you'll need to sort the transfer of e-mails yourself (as well as if you choose hosting with us - same matter). As Harry has said, the e-mail accounts cannot be migrated from Windows to Linux.

Kind regards,
Ben Stones.

[AdamNT]

Hi Ben
Thank you for the reply.

We are getting a brand new website in the coming month or so, with a completely different look so consistancy is not really an issue. Our designers have indicated that they will create a website and move it.

They have asked us 'Do we have an IT person who can move the emails?' and we don't really. So if we do move to a Linux based host, would they be able to help us move the emails over. It sounds like we have to download the emails to a 'PC' for reference, then any new emails will be with the new host. We use Blackberry and Outlook and sometimes our servers internet to view our emails.

I think I understand what you are talking about, I am just trying to get as much information together before we have meetings with the designers next week.

Thanks again
Adam